Elf
Elves are a magical people of otherworldly grace, living in the world but not entirely part of it. They live in places of ethereal beauty, in the midst of ancient forests or in silvery spires glittering with faerie light, where soft music drifts through the air and gentle fragrances waft on the breeze. Elves love nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry, and the good things of the world. Slender and Graceful With their unearthly grace and fine features, elves appear hauntingly beautiful to humans and members of many other races. They are slightly shorter than humans on average, ranging from well under 5 feet tall to just over 6 feet. They are more slender than humans, weighing only 100 to 145 pounds. Males and females are about the same height, and males are only marginally heavier than females. Elves’ coloration encompasses the normal human range and also includes skin in shades of copper, bronze, and almost bluish-white, hair of green or blue, and eyes like pools of liquid gold or silver. Elves have no facial and little body hair. They favor elegant clothing in bright colors, and they enjoy simple yet lovely jewelry. A Timeless Perspective Elves can live well over 700 years, giving them a broad perspective on events that might trouble the shorter-lived races more deeply. They are more often amused than excited, and more likely to be curious than greedy. They tend to remain aloof and unfazed by petty happenstance. When pursuing a goal, however, whether adventuring on a mission or learning a new skill or art, elves can be focused and relentless. They are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. They reply to petty insults with disdain and to serious insults with vengeance. Like the branches of a young tree, elves are flexible in the face of danger. They trust in diplomacy and compromise to resolve differences before they escalate to violence. They have been known to retreat from intrusions into their woodland homes, confident that they can simply wait the invaders out. But when the need arises, elves reveal a stern martial side, demonstrating skill with sword, bow, and strategy. Hidden Woodland Realms Most elves dwell in small forest villages hidden among the trees. Elves hunt game, gather food, and grow vegetables, and their skill and magic allow them to support themselves without the need for clearing and plowing land. They are talented artisans, crafting finely worked clothes and art objects. Their contact with outsiders is usually limited, though a few elves make a good living by trading crafted items for metals (which they have no interest in mining). Elves encountered outside their own lands are commonly traveling minstrels, artists, or sages. Human nobles compete for the services of elf instructors to teach swordplay or magic to their children. Exploration and Adventure Elves take up adventuring out of wanderlust. Since they are so long-lived, they can enjoy centuries of exploration and discovery. They dislike the pace of human society, which is regimented from day to day but constantly changing over decades, so they find careers that let them travel freely and set their own pace. Elves also enjoy exercising their martial prowess or gaining greater magical power, and adventuring allows them to do so. Some might join with rebels fighting against oppression, and others might become champions of moral causes. Elf Names Elves are considered children until they declare themselves adults, some time after the hundredth birthday, and before this period they are called by child names. On declaring adulthood, an elf selects an adult name, although those who knew him or her as a youngster might continue to use the child name. Each elf’s adult name is a unique creation, though it might reflect the names of respected individuals or other family members. Little distinction exists between male names and female names; the groupings here reflect only general tendencies. In addition, every elf bears a family name, typically a combination of other Elvish words. Some elves traveling among humans translate their family names into Common, but others retain the Elvish version. Child Names: Ara, Bryn, Del, Eryn, Faen, Innil, Lael, Mella, Naill, Naeris, Phann, Rael, Rinn, Sai, Syllin, Thia, Vall Male Adult Names: Adran, Aelar, Aramil, Arannis, Aust, Beiro, Berrian, Carric, Enialis, Erdan, Erevan, Galinndan, Hadarai, Heian, Himo, Immeral, Ivellios, Laucian, Mindartis, Paelias, Peren, Quarion, Riardon, Rolen, Soveliss, Thamior, Tharivol, Theren, Varis Female Adult Names: Adrie, Althaea, Anastrianna, Andraste, Antinua, Bethrynna, Birel, Caelynn, Drusilia, Enna, Felosial, Ielenia, Jelenneth, Keyleth, Leshanna, Lia, Meriele, Mialee, Naivara, Quelenna, Quillathe, Sariel, Shanairra, Shava, Silaqui, Theirastra, Thia, Vadania, Valanthe, Xanaphia Family Names (Common Translations): Amakiir (Gemflower), Amastacia (Starflower), Galanodel (Moonwhisper), Holimion (Diamonddew), Ilphelkiir (Gemblossom), Liadon (Silverfrond), Meliamne (Oakenheel), Naïlo (Nightbreeze), Siannodel (Moonbrook), Xiloscient (Goldpetal) Racial Traits Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2. Age. Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old. Alignment. Elves love freedom, variety, and self-expression, so they lean strongly toward the gentler aspects of chaos. They value and protect others’ freedom as well as their own, and they are more often good than not. The drow are an exception; their exile into the Underdark has made them vicious and dangerous. Drow are more often evil than not. Size. Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Darkvision. Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill. Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep. Trance. Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish. Elvish is fluid, with subtle intonations and intricate grammar. Elven literature is rich and varied, and their songs and poems are famous among other races. Many bards learn their language so they can add Elvish ballads to their repertoires. Subraces. Ancient divides among the twelve people resulted in three main subraces and ten rarer variants: high elves, wood elves, and dark elves, who are commonly called drow, and the rarer avarield elves, eladrin, fey'ri elves, lythari elves, mist elves, sea elves, shadar-kai, now elves star elves and wild elves. Choose one of the twelve subraces presented below. Avariel The exceptionally rare avariel are a race of winged elves who narrowly escaped extinction after relentless assaults by chromatic dragon in search of aerial sovereignty. Their bones have adapted to be hollow in order to aid in their flight, however, this also makes them notably more fragile than their already delicate elven brethren. From a distance, their large, feathered wings often cause them to be mistaken for harpies, but upon closer inspection, there is no mistaking their striking, true elven beauty. Still, this similarity coupled with their scarcity of numbers in the material plane further contributes to the belief, even among scholars, that these elves are merely a myth. Avariels society has two distinct subcultures, diametrically opposed in their respective philosophies, but nonetheless working together in perfect harmony. The peaceful avariel primary focus their attention on the arts as well as diplomatic and scholarly endeavors, whereas the warlike avariel are fierce warriors who abide by a strict code of honor in combat. Choose one of these avariel subcultures for the traits below. Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence or Charisma score increases by 1 (your choice). Avariel Academia (Peaceful). You have proficiency with one type of artisan’s tools or musical instrument of your choice and one of the following skills of your choice: Arcana, History, Performance, or Persuasion. Avariel Weapon (Warlike). You have proficiency with spears, pikes, shortbows, and longbows. Flight. You have a flying speed of 30 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor. Hollow Bones. Due to your hollow bones necessary for flight, you are more likely to be damaged from a blunt weapon than any other. Attacks from weapons that deal bludgeoning damage made against you have advantage. Dark Elf (Drow) Descended from an earlier subrace of elves, the drow were banished from the surface world for following the goddess Lolth down the path of evil. Now they have built their own civilization in the depths of the Underdark, patterned after the Way of Lolth. Also called dark elves, the drow have skin that resembles charcoal or obsidian, as well as stark white or pale yellow hair. They commonly have very pale eyes (so pale as to be mistaken for white) in shades of lilac, silver, pink, red, and blue. They tend to be smaller and thinner than most elves. Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by l. Superior Darkvision. Your darkvision has a radius of 120 feet. Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight. Drow Magic. You know the dancing lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the faerie fire spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the darkness spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. Drow Weapon Training. You have proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows. Eladrin Eladrin are elves native to the Feywild, a realm of beauty, unpredictable emotion, and boundless magic. An eladrin is associated with one of the four seasons and has coloration reminiscent of that season, which can also affect the eladrin's mood: Autumn is the season of peace and goodwill, when summer's harvest is shared with all. Winter is the season of contemplation and dolor, when the vibrant energy of the world slumbers. Spring is the season of cheerfulness and celebration, marked by merriment as winter's sorrow passes. Summer is the season of boldness and aggression. a time of unfettered energy. Some eladrin remain associated with a particular season for their entire lives, whereas other eladrin transform, adopting characteristics of a new season. When finishing a long rest, any eladrin can change their season. An eladrin might choose the season that is present in the world or perhaps the season that most closely matches the eladrin's current emotional state. For example, an eladrin might shift to autumn if filled with contentment, another eladrin could change to winter if plunged into sorrow, still another might be bursting with joy and become an eladrin of spring, and fury might cause an eladrin to change to summer. Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1. Fey Step. As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest. When you reach 3rd level, your Fey Step gains an additional effect based on your season; if the effect requires a saving throw, the DC equals 8 +your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier: * Autumn. Immediately after you use your Fey Step, up to two creatures of your choice that you can see within 10 feet of you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you for 1 minute, or until you or your companions deal any damage to it. * Winter. When you use your Fey Step, one creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you before you teleport must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. * Spring. When you use your Fey Step, you can touch one willing creature within 5 feet of you. That creature then teleports instead of you, appearing in an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within 30 feet of you. * Summer. Immediately after you use your Fey Step, each creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you takes fire damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1 damage). Fey'ri Fey'ri resemble elves the way tieflings resemble humans. They are often the foul descendants of a high elf diabolist or demonologist and a succubus. Fey'ri have a natural talent for magic and bladesong. Almost all fey'ri have the ability to change shape, which aids in concealing themselves in society. Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence or Charisma score increases by 1. Fiendish Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage. Fey'ri Magic. You know the produce flame cantrip. You can also cast alter self ''once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you use this version of alter self, you can only use the Change Appearance option. Intelligence or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. '''Extra Language.' You can speak, read, and write Abyssal or Infernal High Elf As a high elf, you have a keen mind and a mastery of at least the basics of magic. There are two types of high elves, the sun elves and the moon elves. The sun elves are a haughty and reclusive, believing themselves to be superior to non-elves and even other elves, while the moon elves are more common and more friendly, and often encountered among humans and other races. Sun elves have bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blond. Their eyes are golden, silver, or black. Moon elves are much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-white, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold. Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1. Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow. Cantrip. You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it. Extra Language. You can speak, read, and write one extra language of your choice. Lythari Lythari, with their soft, yet bestial appearances, are sometimes mistaken for werewolves, and rightfully so, as they can indeed take the form of a wolf. Contrary to typical lycanthropes however, these elves are kind-natured and possess no hybrid form. Like true wolves, they prefer to travel and hunt in packs, sometimes remaining in their wolf form for months or even years at a time. Ability Score Increase. Your Strength or Wisdom score increases by 1 (your choice). Lupine Instincts. You have proficiency in the Stealth skill. In addition, using gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas with wolves. Wolf Shape. As an action, you can assume your innate wolf form. You stay in this form until you choose to revert as an action. While you are transformed, the following rules apply: * Your AC is equal to 12 + your Dexterity modifier, you have a walking speed of 40 feet, and you have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell. * Your razor-sharp maw is a natural weapon, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with it, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. * You retain all your game statistics in this form, including your ability scores, hit points, and skill and saving throw proficiencies. * You can’t wield weapons or cast spells that require somatic or material components. * You can only speak to communicate with wolves or creatures that can understand wolves. * You retain the benefits of any features from your class, race, or other source if your wolf form is physically capable of doing so, and you retain any of your special senses, such as darkvision. * When you transform, you choose whether our equipment falls to the round in your space or merges into your wolf form. Equipment that merges with your form has no effect until you leave the form. Mist Elf Ait'Kel'Sidherin, also known as mist elves or sometimes death elves, are pale-skinned subrace of elves that predominantly lived in the Crescent islands. By their military campaigns for mortal's souls, in which they kill everyone they see, they instill fear and hate in the hearts of the unfortunate inhabitants of the islands. Although among them there are still non-evil or even good Sidherin who are ashamed of acts of their kind. These outsiders do everything to fix the reputation of their race and get rid of the slavery of the Death Giants. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1. Necrotic Resistance. You have resistance against necrotic damage. Sidherin Weapon Training. You have proficiency with flails, maces, and hand crossbows. Soul Drain. Immediately after you hit a creature with a melee or ranged attack as part of the Attack action on your turn, you can regain a number of hit points equal to your character level plus your proficiency bonus. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest. Sea Elves Sea elves fell in love with the wild beauty of the ocean in the earliest days of the multiverse. While other elves traveled from realm to realm, the sea elves navigated the deepest currents and explored the waters across a hundred worlds. Today, they live in small, hidden communities in the ocean shallows and on the Elemental Plane of Water. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1. Sea Elf Training. You have proficiency with the spear, trident, light crossbow, and net. Child of the Sea. You have a swimming speed of 30 feet, and you can breathe air and water. Friend of the Sea. Using gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas with any beast that has an innate swimming speed. Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan. Shadar-kai Sworn to the Raven Queen's service, the mysterious shadar-kai venture into the Material Plane from the Shadowfell to advance her will. Once they were fey like the rest of their elven kin, and now they exist in a strange state between life and death. Eladrin and shadar-kai are like reflections of each other: one bursting with emotion, the other nearly devoid of it. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1. Necrotic Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic damage. Blessing of the Raven Queen. As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest. Starting at 3rd level, you also gain resistance to all damage when you teleport using this trait. The resistance lasts until the start of your next turn. During that time, you appear ghostly and translucent. Snow Elf Snow elves, also known as glacier elves, or Froi'Tel'Quessir, are elves found in chilly areas full of ice and great glaciers. Most are reclusive and rarely live their cities as they are not naturally resistant to the cold. The have snow white hair, pale skin, and usually bright blue or white eyes. Their environment has sharpen their emotions, and they seem elitist and haughty even to other elves with a pale snow appearance. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1. Mask of Winter. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by falling snow, glacier walls, snowy mounds and other natural icy phenomena. Mountain Born. You're acclimated to high altitude, including elevations above 20,000 feet. You're also naturally adapted to cold climates, as described in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Snow Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the spear, scimitar, shortbow, and longbow. Winter Walk. You ignore the difficult terrain made of natural ice or snow. Star Elf The star elves, also known as mithral elves, largely dwell on the demiplane of Sildëyuir near the Feywild. After repeated incursions by humans and orcs, their most powerful mages convened to create Sildëyuir as an escape from the barbarous destruction they witnessed in the material plane. These reclusive elves are taught advanced magical techniques from an early age to assist in cloaking their presence and avoiding the attention of outsiders. In recent years however, the aberrant sorcerers known as the nilshai have penetrated their wards and laid siege upon their safe haven, displacing many of the star elves. Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1. Arcane Veil. You can’t be unwillingly detected by or perceived through divination magic or magical scrying sensors. Star Elf Magic. You know the minor illusion cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast alarm once with this trait. When you reach 5th level, you can cast Nystul’s magic aura once with this trait. You regain the ability to cast these spells with this trait when you finish a long rest. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells. Wild Elf Wild elves have an appearance similar to that of wood elves, but are notably more feral and savage, almost startlingly so to their elven kin. Generations of living in the wilderness have refined them into a much hardier and animalistic forms, eating those they killed in battle and often find themselves more readily accepted by the beasts of the forests than other elves, even their wood elf cousins. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution or Wisdom score increases by 1 (your choice). Agent of the Wilds. You know one cantrip of your choice from the druid spell list. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for it. Corpse Eater. '''During a short or long rest, whenever you consume at least 1 pound of raw flesh from a humanoid creature that has been dead for no longer than 1 month, you experience the last 10 minutes of the creatures life through its eyes. For those 10 minutes, you are considered blind, deaf, and incapacitated as your body enters a trance like state similar to your Trance feature. Wood Elf As a wood elf, you have keen senses and intuition, and your fleet feet carry you quickly and stealthily through your native forests. Often also called cooper elves, the wood elves are reclusive and distrusting of non-elves. They see themselves as guardians of the forests were they dwell. Wood elves’ skin tends to be copperish in hue, sometimes with traces of green. Their hair tends toward browns and blacks, but it is occasionally blond or copper-colored. Their eyes are green, brown, or hazel. '''Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1. Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow. Fleet of Foot. Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet. Mask of the Wild. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.